As we work to meet the learning needs of a changing generation of learners, technology becomes increasingly important and even essential in the education of students. Social networking sites such as Flickr, Library Thing, Delicious, etc. can be valuable tools when creating activities for students. Flickr has a wonderful tagging fuction that allows you to associate pictures with specific parts of the world. This would be a wonderful way to teach students history and geography in a way that is meaningful to them. Delicious can be used to create a resource list of websites for students that may guide them in a project. I have personally considered creating a Facebook page for the Jr. Civitan club, a club that I sponsor at my school. Since so many high school students have facebook accounts, this would be a very effective way of communicating dates and upcoming events. Unfortunately, many educators are not allowed to use these sites at school because they are blocked or forbidden from use in the school environment.
It is in my opinion that if we want to reach all learners (not just the motivated, high achievers) we are going to have to employ more creative strategies such as using social networking sites. In my county, most social networking sites are blocked by the county, inluding Library Thing. Library Thing could be a valuable resource for me as a media specialist. For example, if a teacher is looking for a novel about Native Americans, but he cannot remember the name, I can use tagging in Library Thing to help me the book he is looking for. I have heard that some libraries are using Library Thing as their primary online catalog to save money on an OPAC system. I also love that on Library Thing, you can create a list of books that you have read, you are currently reading, or have plans to read. Teachers could have students keep track of their books for the 25 book campaign on Library Thing. Students could also search for new books they are interested in with this site.
I think the answer to internet filtering, social networking sites, and education is common sense. Teachers, don't let your students go into the computer lab and go to a social networking site with little direction on what to do. If you are going to use these sites, create a plan. Think about how you will avoid issues before hand and provide high structure in the lesson. I think this will allow us to use social networking sites with less potential for online danger.
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You are right about the need to utilize these social networking tools to reach a variety of learners. We are all hearing about the need to differentiate instruction, and taking advantage of these tools can help educators do this. That is a shame that your school system can't access Library Thing! I like your idea about helping students keep track of books they've read and want to read. I think that Library Thing would be a great resource and candidate for unblocking! As you said, with all social networking sites, have a structured plan in place to guide students while giving them flexibility to learn in their own way. With this in place, social networking tools can only make instruction better!
ReplyDeleteAs I’ve stated in other post, social networking is a tool that many educators would like to use but are limited because of filtering issues. Your idea of creating a Face Book page for your school club is a very efficient use of the technology since so many of the students already have their own page. Additionally, these types of technologies often do motivate students that are not highly motivated or engaged in traditional school activities. Library Thing is one of my favorite sites! This would be a great way for students to take the idea of the traditional paper reading log and bring it to life. They could share this with friends, family, as well as classmates. I really like that idea! Hopefully more school systems will see the value of these social networking sites and work to “unblock” some of the more useful sites.
ReplyDeleteAs I read all these posts with such excellent ideas for how to incorporate social networking into the classroom it becomes apparent how far behind some school systems are. Yes, it’s true, here in Troup County we have not even embraced using films, videos and DVD's in the classroom. We have about 20 DVD's (some of which are about as exciting as watching dough rise) in our media center and we are the largest high school in the county. Yikes! As media specialists, we all really need to start pushing the 21st century on some of our local administrators and county people. Perhaps even at the state level! If they embrace this, then the counties will have no option but to follow. Can we show them the importance of teaching our students where they're at with technology? Start small, with something like monitored blogs, Delicious, and Librarything. As you said, Librarything is great for helping students and teachers research, using their tags to find the right books. And Delicious is the best for weeding through the billions of sites out there, because we all have access to the sites with no database fees or expensive book purchases. Social networking is there, in some cases it’s available, and all we need to do is make our teachers familiar and comfortable with it.
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